The FSF has released the third draft of the revised third version of the GNU General Public License. Some of the changes in the new draft, such as the increased clarification and legal language, or the housekeeping changes that reflect new aspects of the license are likely to be accepted. However, the license also includes a new approach to the controversial issue of lock-down technologies as well as more explicit language about patents, including language designed to prevent a re-occurrence of agreements such as the one that Novell entered into with Microsoft - all of which is apt to kindle heated debate as the revision process enters its final stages after fifteen months of intensive work.

"It hasn't even gotten started yet. The *real* damage starts after its release date, when the division of the community goes from being a concept, which can be repaired, to being a matter of law, which can't."

There is something about these GPL3 thread that, everyone has an opinion, but nobody provides real substance. I could have included *any* post in this thread.

What *damage* show me the damage point to the projects. What *division* of the community(sic). I love forked projects simply becuase it makes for a better product, and if people *really* believe what Linus has been saying "The best technology will win"; The argument has some merit. Unfortunately we have already seen FSF insist on owning copyright for this reason so all their projects will go GPL2. Linus is staying GPL2 only, and its under consensus whether he could actually change it if he wanted to. Large project like MySQL etc are actively choosing a license, or having a license change at all. Linux the community if a community at all is a collection of communities, each choosing their preferred License for their project. This is without pointing out the obvious, each linux distribution's doesn't just have one but 20 different licenses with sometimes a License wrote specially for the application.

I don't understand this point, but then I don't understand most as most posts and emotional; devoid of *any* content.